Treadmill Walking Wildly inaccurate

Still same issue, got a new threadmill did a fast walk outside and then inside, i got the same time and steps except distance. Each time my watch is mostly always 20% lower. The calibrate does not accept the corrections, it wants a lower value...so i edit the activities but it then does not count in my activities. Running is a lit more closer even higher sometimes. It's been like that for years, i was hoping that it would of been by now ...snif

Yes, it used to work well, then they changed something in walking detection and broke it.  I can advise the workaround that works for me, and that is to walk on the treadmill using a "power walk" stance, i.e. not arms swinging naturally by your side, but walking with the forearms in a more horizontal position. In that position it doesn't seem to lose steps.  Let me know if this works for you! 

My experience is that the VA4 indoor WALK and TREADMILL activities are broken. I can't even get it to calibrate for TREADMILL walking. I gave up and now use my cheap Vivosmart 4 for Walking indoors because it links to my phone's GPS/Location and produces a good activity.

And I doubt it will ever be fixed on the VA4 because they changed how the indoor activity works. Note that the VS4 and other lower priced models in the Garmin line still work indoors.

During the non-winter months all my activities are outside, so I'm only disgusted by Garmin's attitude on this problem during the winter.

Last Garmin fitness/health watch I will ever buy. Won't be fooled by false advertisiing again!

The indoor treadmill running activity (also includes walking) works well for me, but I have never tried to calibrate it. I just tap "save" after I'm finished. It is in the ballpark for pace and distance for both walking and running, and spot on for cadence.

As a long term customer, with at least 6-7 Garmin watches (including a MARQ and the last three generations of F-pro), I find the fact they have not addressed this totally frustrating.

These watches should be intelligent enough to work out a fast paced walk on either a treadmill or road route.

If it was out by 250-500 steps, I would understand but when I say it is out by half (1,500/2,000 steps vs 4,000-5,000 actual) I am not exaggerating. 

Not everyone runs or jogs - these devices should be able to adapt to a fast paced walk. 

Personally, I have found customer support to be VERY poor and if I was asked to recommend a smart watch, I would be hard pressed to vouch for Garmin.

It feels like the rely on the fact that people buy into the Garmin eco-system and Garmin hold the belief that once you’ve bought a few bits, you are unlikely to leave, so they can ignore issues but people will stay. I cannot help but think this will come back to bite them as more and more customers slip away due to unreliability and poor service.

ovekvam: You're lucky, I guess. I can't get out of the calibrate loop to save. It just keeps asking to calibrate. I have lots of GPS WALK outside activiities as suggusted by Garmin to use the WALK INDOOR or TREADMILL for walking, so that can't be the problem.

Damn shame, that something advertised as a feature on the VA4 does not work as expected. Why Garmin had to change the indoors activities just because the device has GPS is beyond my thinking. The Walk Indoor activity could just as easily let the phone give you location for the calculations as does the VS4.

This problem has been complained about for 2 years, since the VA4 came out and nothing has every been done about it.

Garmin has apparently given up on anyone needing to use indoor facalities where they live, and could care less how many complaints there are, especially now that the VA4 is about to be replaced by a new model, if rumors are true.

When I stop the treadmill running activity, I have an option to save on top, and calibrate at the bottom. I always select save.

Interesting!! I knew it was trying to latch onto GPS. That is the only way it is getting such awful numbers! I haven't been able to find it again, but one time when I was digging through the deepest parts of the watch's OS I found that it was hitting the Satellites while I was doing the treadmill activity. I screen shot it and sent it to Garmin, they acted like it wasn't related to my problem. I pushed the issue and they kept insisting it wasn't the reason for the issue.

Now that you say it, I got really excited about a week ago because I was walking on the treadmill and it was exactly accurate. The treadmill said 1.10 miles and the VA4 said 1.10 miles. But I had turned location off on my phone... I am going to disconnect my watch from my phone completely next time I get on the treadmill and see what happens. We know it is possible for the watch to accurately track our activities. Someone at Garmin flipped a switch to break the dang thing, or as a strategy for them to sell foot pods.

THIS IS A GREAT DEVELOPEMENT! Hopefully Garmin engineers are keeping an eye out on this thread. I am still going to screen shot this and send it to the guy who is helping me right now.

For the record, I always leave the phone at home when doing treadmill activities.